OTTAWA -- The Harper government believes it can strike a deal with Alberta to impose national caps on greenhouse-gas pollution from its largest industrial facilities, Environment Minister John Baird said in an interview.

Although he believes that Alberta’s plan to fight global warming is weaker than his own, he said that he expects to implement his plan without unfairly penalizing the province’s industry.

“This is about reducing carbon emissions, it’s not about a redistribution of wealth,” Mr. Baird said in a phone interview from Hawaii, where he is participating in international climate-change negotiations hosted by the Bush administration.

“I think there’s been constructive engagement with Alberta and I think the difference is they’re the only ones regulating. No other province is regulating large final emitters . . . So the national numbers stand, and I think we’ve been working constructively with them.”

While he praised Alberta Premier Ed Stelmach’s government for introducing regulations to crack down on industrial pollution, Baird continued a war of words with Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty about who had the weakest climate-change plan. While McGuinty has accused the federal government of suffering from “a poverty of ambition” when it comes to fighting global warming, Mr. Baird noted that the Ontario premier only introduced a climate-change plan at the end of his first four-year mandate and failed to deliver on a promise to shut down the province’s coal-fired power plants — a major source of air pollution and greenhouse-gas emissions.

“I think it’s self-evident the priority that (Mr. McGuinty) has accorded (climate change),” said Mr. Baird. “People who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones. He’d be best to put all his energy in doing what he said he would do. I’ll judge him by the standards he set for himself, and I think he’d be wise to get to work.”

Meantime, environmentalists, who have criticized the Alberta plan, noted that the province has some stronger elements than the federal plan. While the European Union and Alberta are both requiring companies to pay for independent reviews of their progress in reducing emissions, environmental research groups say there is no such requirement in the federal plan, opening the door for companies to exaggerate their numbers without getting caught.

“There is a big question mark over whether and how Environment Canada will ever discover companies that may be ‘gaming’ the system,” said Matthew Bramley, a climate-change policy expert at the Pembina Institute. “How exactly are the enforcement staff going to find out? We have never received a convincing answer to this question.”

Environment Canada has also proposed exemptions for small facilities in the oil-and-gas sector, which it estimated would exclude up to 10 million tonnes of greenhouse-gas pollution from its regulations. But Mr. Baird said the government will be constantly trying to improve its plan.

“We’re going to have a lot of work to do on climate change, this year and for the next few generations,” he said. “This is going to be one of the defining issues of our time, and the work is never going to be done. That’s the reality in Canada. It’s the reality in other countries.”

Mr. Baird praised the Bush administration for setting up its international negotiating forum on climate change with the major economies. He said that it was easier to make progress in discussions than at the United Nations talks where nearly 200 countries are involved.

“It’s obviously hard to have a meeting with 15,000 people,” Mr. Baird said. “This is a more focused discussion and it’s been a success so far.”

The Alberta and federal governments have both proposed “intensity” targets that require industries to reduce pollution per unit of production. It means that absolute emissions could increase for sectors such as the oilsands where production is expected to grow by four- or five-times over the next 20 years.

Mr. Baird is proposing for Canada to lower its greenhouse emissions to 1990 levels in 10 to 15 years, despite the country’s international obligations under the Kyoto Protocol.

Governments from around the world agreed in their last assessment of peer-reviewed science on global warming that humans must stabilize greenhouse gases in the atmosphere over the next decade and then make drastic reductions to avoid dramatic and potentially dangerous changes to the earth’s climate.

Almost Done!

Postmedia wants to improve your reading experience as well as share the best deals and promotions from our advertisers with you. The information below will be used to optimize the content and make ads across the network more relevant to you. You can always change the information you share with us by editing your profile.

By clicking "Create Account", I hearby grant permission to Postmedia to use my account information to create my account.

I also accept and agree to be bound by Postmedia's Terms and Conditions with respect to my use of the Site and I have read and understand Postmedia's Privacy Statement. I consent to the collection, use, maintenance, and disclosure of my information in accordance with the Postmedia's Privacy Policy.

Postmedia wants to improve your reading experience as well as share the best deals and promotions from our advertisers with you. The information below will be used to optimize the content and make ads across the network more relevant to you. You can always change the information you share with us by editing your profile.

By clicking "Create Account", I hearby grant permission to Postmedia to use my account information to create my account.

I also accept and agree to be bound by Postmedia's Terms and Conditions with respect to my use of the Site and I have read and understand Postmedia's Privacy Statement. I consent to the collection, use, maintenance, and disclosure of my information in accordance with the Postmedia's Privacy Policy.